I liked it, but didn’t love it. Now, the first one is one of my favorite Marvel movies (up there with only Avengers, Winter Soldier and maybe Civil War), but I will admit that it has a fair amount of holes/problems that it overcame through good characters and hilarious writing. For some reason a lot of the humor in this second one felt off… I can see the joke, but the delivery or timing was just wrong. And later on, the humor actually kinda destroys the flow of some more emotional scenes.
But once the plot kicks in and the stronger second half takes over, things get better. And despite having yet another “villain going to destroy the planet/universe” threat, this was incredibly character-driven, which is definitely different from the usual superhero fare. If you liked and remember the characters from the first one, you’ll like it. If you don’t… I think it’ll fall flat.
I do agree that some scenes were far too drawn out… the end battle probably didn’t need to be so long, it was pretty clear what was going to eventually happen. And the fireworks scene at the end felt a bit over-the-top too. Who’s ready for a Sylvester Stallone “Starhawk” movie??
It felt weird to have a movie where action heroes talk about being “family” with Vin Diesel in it, yet not have Vin Diesel being the one talking about it.
I sat through all the credits. Unless I took a micro-nap, I’m wondering what all six credit sequences were supposed to be. I only saw four:
Kraglin trying to control Yondu’s arrow
The creation of Adam
Teen Groot
The Watchers finally having enough of Stan Lee’s blathering
There was also the disco Guardians theme, the cards showing various cast members dancing to the disco theme, and some random credits showing “I am Groot”. What were the other two end credit sequences supposed to be?
Fun, but dragged in places and needed to end about 15 minutes before it actually did. Way, way too many scenes of characters talking through their feelings before tearfully admitting they just needed a hug. Nebula? Nebula doesn’t need a fucking hug! I dunno, I enjoyed it, but it felt like the first Marvel movie that was corpulent and smug about how clever and funny it was. Seriously, you don’t need to actually put David Hasselhoff in there to beat the pop culture references home.
I thought it was better than the first. The original GOTG has so many question marks around it before you went in, i.e Chris Pratt as an action hero, a professional wrestler, a talking racoon and a tree, with Zoe Saldana perhaps the only thing you could look forward to and the fact it was goo**d magnified the experience in your mind because you had such few expectations.
This one suffered because everyone knew going in the formula worked, but they managed to make a compelling story, and no take itself too seriously.
Forgive me for saying so - and I’m really not trying to be a Hershey bar in your swimming pool - but reading some of these posts puts me off seeing the movie.
I’m not a Marvel universe scholar - I haven’t even attended Intro 101 - but I enjoy the movies, generally. I really enjoyed the first GOTG, as it was, without getting into all of the easter eggs and call outs. But the posts here makes this one sound like you need a reference encyclopedia to enjoy it.
I’d probably be considered a casual viewer compared to those who don’t consider themselves such (although I follow enough online to have caught the Stan Lee/Watcher joke on my own). My wife is definitely a casual viewer. She hasn’t even seen all the Marvel stuff yet, and she doesn’t remember many details of what she has seen. She enjoyed it at least as much as I did.
If you liked the first one, you’ll like this one. As others have suggested, you can’t recreate the surprising wow factor of the original, because that only happens once. But this sequel is well done and the humor is pretty broadly accessible - more so if you at least understand the characters from the first movie, but you don’t need much insider knowledge to enjoy almost all of the jokes.\
Oddly, the whole “family” hook kinda fell flat for me because it closely mirrors a lot of Mass Effect: Andromeda (including a couple of specific lines). So the whole emotional side of the movie felt played out for me because I literally have just played it out.
To give an example, midway through the film, you begin to think maybe one of the character is a bad guy. Some movies would have tried to disguise this fact or attempted a “shocking subversion”, in an attempt to not seem predictable. This movie recognized the fact the clues were pointing in one direction and respected the viewer’s intelligence to say “yeah we know, but enjoy how we get there and resolve it”.
So one thing my daughters and I talked about - there was a huge on-screen body count in this movie. Usually Marvel movies keep the deaths implied & off screen - but the Ravagers got ravaged. And the scene of them dragging the pleading guy to the airlock & tossing him out was a little tough on my 12 year old.
I think it does. They do put in a ton of stuff for long time Marvel fans, but you can definitely enjoy the movie without all the background. If you’ve watched Guardians 1, you’ll be fine.
My wife and daughter are very casual Marvel viewers. My daughter only likes the Guardians movies and has never read a comic book. My wife has seen about half of the movies and, again, has never picked up a comic. They both really enjoyed the movie. My daughter declared it better than the first (but she’s only 11 so take that with a grain of salt).
I enjoyed it because the actors and characters are charming but didn’t love it. It was a smaller story than I expected. GotG movies are our main chance to see the greater Universe in the MCU. I was a little surprised that the movie only had two locations mostly. I expected their version of the Federation to be involved more.
I liked the growth in Rocket’s and Yondu’s characters. I liked that the story was about families. Both the ones we are born into and the ones we make for ourselves.
On the other hand, Drax started to get old and it wasn’t even the same joke as the last movie where he took everything literally. He was just basically Kramer. A guy who says whatever he was thinking.
It also felt at times very…smug…for lack of a better word. Like, “aren’t we so cute and/or funny?”
But still a good movie. Glad these characters will be back in the Avengers and their own next volume.
I found the whole “Yondu and Rocket take back the ship” scene was worse given that them systematically hunting down and killing all the mutineers was pretty much played for laughs and visual gags. That was a pretty jarring error in taste.
There is an element of that, yeah. There’s a scene where Sylvester Stallone has an inessential cameo as a space-pirate boss who obviously has a Marvel history, and you think yeah, I suppose I’ll find out who he is later. And then there’s a post-credits scene where he and another bunch of pirate captains -who obviously also have Marvel history - talk about getting the gang back together, and it’s obviously the set-up for another movie, and I was left thinking, “So you want more of my money, and you want me to do homework before you get it?” They’re getting a little too smug and complacent that they can slap the Marvel name on anything in their archives and audiences will flock in their million hordes.
I don’t know about smug, but as a fan who read Marvel in the late 60’s, 70’s and 80’s (90’s mainstream comics were, at most, unreadable, IMO) it was great to see members of the ORIGINAL Guardians of the Galaxy (Charlie 27 who was played by Ving Rhames and Martinex played by Michael Rosebaum and Stallone as Starhawk. Those two characters, along with Yondu were 4/5 of the original Guardians comic, dating back to the late 60’s)
BUT
You don’t have to know any of that to enjoy the movie. They’re just other characters in this vast universe, characters that they can tell stories about. I’m sure the bulk of movie going audiences had NEVER heard of Rocket Raccoon, Star Lord, Groot, Gamora, Drax, before the first film, but not knowing them didn’t hurt the enjoyment of watching that film.
I don’t understand getting upset about this, or thinking you “have to do homework”.
When these characters are introduced, new audiences can enjoy getting to know them for the first time and those of us can also enjoy that, but also have an added smile recognizing something we read and saw long ago.
I strongly disagree. The only thing you need to enjoy this movie is having watched the first one. Not getting every single in joke or name drop or cameo is completely unnecessary to your enjoyment of the movie.
I had absolutely no idea that Stallone and Co were the original Guardians, no idea whatsoever. It didn’t even occur to me that it was a setup for another movie; some other things, yes, but not this part. I still greatly enjoyed the movie, even the parts with Stallone. I dare say I enjoyed it a lot more than you, since I wasn’t thinking of losing more money to Marvel.
Even though you could infer that, I don’t know if that’s necessarily their intention. I think it was meant as an off-camera idea.
Having said that, here’s a recent quote from director James Gunn.
[QUOTE=James Gunn]
He’s an executive producer on 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, the first time the Guardians characters will engage with the larger MCU, and after writing and directing Vol. 3, Gunn will help the studio make more movies within its “cosmic” realm.
“[It’s] basically me saying to Kevin, ‘OK, we’re going to do Guardians Vol. 3, and then I think those characters should have his or her own movie, and then this character here, and then we should bring this person in,’” said Gunn.
[/QUOTE]